Abstract
BACKGROUND: Thyroid dysfunction has a negative impact on coronary artery diseases (CAD) through several changes in its risk factors like dyslipidemia, glucose intolerance, and components of metabolic syndrome. Parental history of premature CAD may be an important risk factor for their offspring. OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether overt and subclinical hypothyroidism and the risk of atherosclerosis are present in adults with parental history of CAD. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This case control study included 135 hypothyroid patients and 100 age-sex matched controls. Data were analyzed regarding CAD risk factors, hormonal and biochemical measures including retinol Binding Protein-4, fasting serum insulin, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, lipid profile, fasting serum glucose, and serum malondialdehyde. RESULTS: Parental history of CAD was significantly higher in overt hypothyroidism than subclinical group (P = 0.001). The level of RBP-4 in hypothyroid patients was significantly higher than euthyroid subjects (P = 0.03), and was higher in hypothyroid patients with positive parental history of CAD (p = 0.01). There were positive relationships between RBP-4 and related cardiovascular risk factors and with hypothyroidism, its sensitivity and specificity were 47.9% and 42.5% respectively. The positive predictive value was 60.8% and the negative predictive value was 30.4%. Hypothyroid patients with parental history of CAD had a risk of 3.7 times more than the euthyroid subjects. CONCLUSIONS: In hypothyroidism patients, parental history of CAD is a predictor of future coronary events and the related risk factors. RBP-4 is positively correlated with waist circumference, BMI, lipid profile, High-sensitivity CRP, MDA, fasting serum glucose, fasting serum insulin, HOMA indices and TSH.